All the King's Men has everything to suggest Oscar greatness -- Academy Award-winning writer/director/producer Steven Zaillan (Schindler's List); an all-star cast of Jude Law, Anthony Hopkins, Kate Winslet, Mark Ruffalo and Sean Penn; the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1946 novel of political intrigue by Robert Penn Warren at its foundation; and a 1949 Oscar-winning original adaptation as its precedent. It is bizarre, then, that the movie fails to ever truly inspire.
Willie Stark (Sean Penn) is a backcountry-bumpkin-turned-idealist-politician whose original aim to empower the "hicks" of Louisiana is ultimately tainted by scandal and impeachment. Newspaper columnist Jack Burden (Jude Law) is Stark's right-wing man who is engaged in the mounting political treachery. He is asked to dig up dirt on his surrogate father figure, Judge Irwin (Anthony Hopkins) and meanwhile finds himself revisiting a past love affair with Anne Stanton (Kate Winslet) in a gloomy and sporadic subplot.
The movie begins with one scene of dense dialogue after another, and it fails to ever come to life from there. Occasionally Stark gives an outrageously charismatic speech, or a flashback to the budding romance between Burden and Stanton enlivens things for a bit, but the overriding mood of the movie is lackluster. Not without promise, but without sparkle.
As the flashbacks recur more frequently, there is hope that they will build to an affecting ending. Sadly, no such luck. Instead, they simply distract from the main storyline and remain unfocused themselves. The result is a set of muddled and distracted storylines. Just as the viewer fancies he or she might be drawn in, the storyline jumps to another undeveloped strain.
While there is certainly a web of relationships in place, there is no emotional weight or chemistry behind these ties. Penn's and Law's characters are ambiguously allied; it is indeterminate why Burden endorses Stark's persona in the first place. Burden's relationship with his childhood guardian, Irwin, has the potential to be poignant. When, however, Burden approaches Irwin about a long-buried scandal that smudges the Judge's upstanding reputation (cue what should be a powerful scene), the exchange is flat and awkward. The movie's interplays are simply unmoving.
So, if the movie's relationships are weak, its dialogue is stifling, and its subplots are murky, its individual performances could still shine in and of themselves, right? Yes, but no. Penn offers an arguably dynamic performance, but his character still fails to truly connect with the audience; we don't really find reason to believe in him or want him to ultimately succeed. Law's character is overwhelmingly pensive and sedate. We find ourselves indifferent to the outcome of things between his and Winslet's characters. Hopkins offers his usual adept performance, but the screenplay and production don't give him much leverage.
In trying to take on too much -- a dynamite cast, an intricate plotline, an adaptation of a classic -- All the King's Men accomplishes very little. While there are meaningful lines and moments here and there, the viewer keeps hoping for things to come together, but eventually the movie is over without much of concern having ever really amounted.
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